The WAMMA Ranking Committee is comprised of the most knowledgeable MMA sports/media experts ever assembled. WAMMA has assembled a "Who's Who" of MMA sports/media experts from around the globe.
David Andrest
Member
David Andrest is a senior editor for FiveOuncesofPain.com. A graduate of the University of Buffalo, Andrest has made a living as a developer of multimedia and websites, and has worked with many of his field's leading properties. An obsessive follower of the sport since the very early part of 1992, his work has previously appeard on MMAJunkie.com, Yahoo! Sports, and The Ledger— a central Florida newspaper.
Jon Anik Member
Jon Anik joined ESPN in February of 2006, working primarily for ESPN Radio. He moved over to the digital media platforms early in 2007 and was named the host of ESPN.com's 'MMA Live' in April of 2008. An avid MMA advocate and fan, Anik began covering Mixed Martial Arts in February of 2007. He also hosted a boxing radio show in Boston for four years, covering more than 25 championship fights in Las Vegas and throughout the United States. Anik came to ESPN from WWZN '1510 the Zone' in Boston, where he hosted an afternoon drive show called 'The Diehards'. In addition to 'MMA Live', Anik does other television work for ESPN Mobile TV and ESPN.com. He was recently named the play-by-play announcer for the Bellator Fighting Championships.
Jared Barnes
Member
Jared Barnes is the MMA writer for the Houston Chronicle and chron.com. He is a regular guest on SportsRadio610 and does multimedia work for the Rockets, Astros and Texans for chron.com.
Benjamin Baroukh-Ebstein
Member
Benjamin Baroukh-Ebstein currently maintains his own blog in French regarding the business of MMA. He also writes articles for IKUSA.fr, Frances' number one MMA website.
Dave Carmichael
Member
Mark Chalifoux
Member
Mark Chalifoux is the MMA writer for the Baltimore Sun. He’s written for ESPN.com, SI.com, the Athens News and also works in sports talk radio in Cincinnati.
Steve Cofield
Member
Steve Cofield does a daily M-F, Noon-3 p.m. PT sports-talk radio show for ESPNRadio1100 in Las Vegas. Cofield & Cokin, The Mr. Sunshine Show, The Wise Guys and Sporting News Radio pre-game w/Steve Cofield has has done live pre-fight and post-fight shows from UFC events in Las Vegas and around the country since 2002. Cofield has also broadcast at K-1, Pride, WEC events and over 100 boxing matches. Aside from his radio show, Steve is the editor of CageWriter.com, the mixed martial arts blog for Yahoo! Sports.
Andrew Falzon
Member
Andrew Falzon is a regular guest on FoxNews.com’s FightGame and a contributor to MMAPayout.com. His writing has also appeared in FIGHT! Magazine and on ESPN.com.
Based in New York City, Falzon has an extensive background in broadcast news and has appeared on FSN and HDNet as ringside reporter for the International Fight League, and as an editorialist on NBCSports.com.
Ben Fowlkes
Member
Ben Fowlkes is an MMA columnist for Sports Illustrated and a writer for CagePotato.com. He formerly served as editor of IFL.tv, and his work has appeared on CBS Sportsline, Fox Sports, and Crave Online.
Brian Fritz
Member
Brian Fritz currently covers MMA in his "Fightin' Words" blog for The Orlando Sentinel and on ESPN Radio 1080 in Orlando, FL where he works full-time as the sports director. He is a graduate of the University of Central Florida where he earned his degree in broadcasting. Besides watching fights or enjoying the theme parks with his fiance, Brian is also a diehard fan of the Chicago Cubs and LA Lakers.
Randy Gordon
Member
Randy Gordon, or “Randy G,” as he’s called by his friends and colleagues, considers himself to be “the luckiest boxing fan ever born.” That’s because this self-proclaimed “boxing junkie” has gone from being a fighter to a writer to an editor to an announcer to a state commissioner to a promoter for a major casino to an author to one of the busiest personal trainers in the country and the host of a wildly-popular talk show on satellite radio.
After graduating from Long Island University in 1972, Randy was hired to become the Assistant Editor of both World & International Boxing Magazines. In 1979, he was hired by The Ring’s new owner, Bert Sugar, to become the magazine’s Associate Editor. Together, Sugar and Gordon put out what is widely considered, to this day, to be the best Ring Magazines published in the 85-year history of the magazine. In 1983, he became the fourth and youngest Editor-in-Chief of the historical “Bible of Boxing.”
During his years at The Ring, Randy was asked by ESPN to sit in on a boxing telecast from the “Ice World” in Totowa, New Jersey. ESPN promptly signed Randy to be their color analyst, splitting that duty with Al Bernstein. For two years, Randy brought his exuberance, honesty and love for boxing to ringside for ESPN, before moving to the USA Network in 1983. There, he and blow-by-blow announcer Al Albert became known as TV boxing’s best one-two punch.
A telephone call from then-New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo in the summer of 1988 changed all that. In that call, Gov. Cuomo asked Gordon if he’d be interested in becoming Chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.
On November 10, 2005, Gordon was inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame at their yearly awards dinner in Garfield, New Jersey.
In July 2007, Sirius Satellite Radio, which recently merged with XM Satellite Radio, launched a talk show called “Fight Club,” with Randy & MMA Insider Chris Thomas as the hosts. The show has become one of the hottest, most-popular and talked-about shows on Sirius XM. The show is heard live every Tuesday and Friday from 5-7 p.m. (ET) on channel 127.
Gordon and his wife, Roni live in Melville, Long Island. They have five children and four grandchildren.
Jesse Holland
Member
Jesse Holland is Editor and Senior Writer of MMAmania.com and perhaps the most meddlesome journalist since Janice Kent.
A graduate of Temple University, Jesse spent the early part of his career toiling away in corporate jobs until he was discovered (by accident) writing editorials for a popular sports website.
Satirical but never sardonic, Jesse is now putting his passion for mixed martial arts to good use with insight and commentary that go beyond the standard nuts and bolts of MMA reporting. He is a regular guest on BetUS radio and has appeared on Fox Spots 1460, ProMMA Radio and ESPN 1100.
Ron Kruck
Member
Ron Kruck has covered practically every sport imaginable but currently spends most of his time reporting from the ring of HDNet Fights. In addition to conducting pre and post fight interviews, the multitalented broadcaster has also done play-by-play announcing for the IFL on HDNet, FSN and MyNetwork.
Being involved in Mixed Martial Arts for years, Ron has been the ring reporter for several fight organizations and was the producer and host for the MMA behind the scenes program Exposed on HDNet.
From Fedor Emelianenko to Chuck Liddell, Kruck has interviewed the sports biggest stars.
Since 2003, Kruck has been a host, reporter and producer with Mark Cuban’s high definition network HDNet. Covering both mixed martial arts and boxing, Kruck is an integral part of the network’s Friday night MMA line-up. His Kruck’s Korner segment on Inside MMA highlights the unique people and stories from the MMA world.
Prior to joining HDNet, Kruck’s sports broadcasting career began as a producer and reporter for Prime Sports Network, TBS Super Station and KWHD-TV in Denver. The Inside Pitch, Sports Talk Live, The John Elway Retirement Special and the International Golf Show were just a few of the programs he worked on.
Ron Kruck has covered and conducted interviews at some of the largest sporting events, including the Stanley Cup playoffs, Major League Baseball playoffs, NBA playoffs, NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, Olympic Trials and the Fiesta and Orange Bowls.
Todd Martin
Member
Todd Martin has followed mixed martial arts since the inception of the sport, and covered the sport for over five years. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Wrestling Observer, SI.com and CBS Sportsline. Todd lives in Los Angeles and has a degree from UCLA School of Law.
Franklin McNeil
Member
Franklin McNeil is the mixed martial arts columnist for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., and ESPN.com. He is also an analyst on ESPN.com’s “MMA Live.” A sports journalist for more than 25 years, Franklin began his career at the New York Post in 1980. He has also worked at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Akron Beacon Journal.
Caleb Newby
Member
Caleb Newby started his career in journalism at 411mania, initially as an MMA writer in the sports section before convincing the powers that be how mixed martial arts was worthy of its own dedicated section of content. Newby moved into the role of Editor in Chief of MMA at 411mania, leading the the site into a respected and known commodity in the mixed martial arts world. More recently, Newby has moved on to Nokaut.com to serve as Editor in addition to contributing at FiveOuncesOfPain.com, one of the industry's leading MMA blogs. Newby also holds a bachelor's degree History, which may surprise you to know, has little to no overlap with sports or journalism what-so-ever.
John Ramdeen
Member
John Ramdeen has spent more than a decade studying the sport of Mixed Martial Arts. His love of martial arts movies lead him to train in Shotokan Karate at an early age. In 1995, John saw his first Ultimate Fighting Championship and it forever changed his life. John strives to understand all aspects of the sport and educate the public about what he considers to be the greatest sport in the world. After attending school for film and TV, John found the perfect job as an on air Analyst/Producer with The Fight Network
Jose Rodriguez
Member
Jose Rodriguez is the Editor-in-Chief of the Calgary Sun Newspaper as well as the mixed-martial-arts writer for Sun Media — Canada's largest newspaper chain. He also runs The Scrapyard blog on canoe.ca.
Ariel Shnerer
Member
A major of broadcast journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, Shnerer is the editorial ticker manager and editor of TheFightNetwork.com. Shnerer coordinates combat sports news content at The Fight Network for both web and television. He runs the world's first-ever 24/7 combat sports news ticker, which can be seen on Canadian TV channel The Fight Network. In addition, he works alongside former PRIDE F.C. play-by-play announcer Mauro Ranallo, Fight Network Radio producer John Pollock and MMA analyst John Ramdeen to write television scripts, supervise boards and build original programming.
Shnerer worked at Rogers Sportsnet as a script coordinator before committing himself full-time to North America's only combat sports television network. His work appears on FOX Sports, FiveOuncesOfPain.com, as well as The National Post, Canada's renowned national newspaper.
Michael David Smith
Member
Michael David Smith is the lead MMA writer for FanHouse.com, the sports site of the AOL network. In 2007 he was named Mainstream Media Sports Blogger of the Year by Sports Illustrated. He has also written for The New York Times, The New York Sun, the Los Angeles Daily News, the Orange County Register, ESPN the Magazine and FoxSports.com. He lives in Chicago with his wife, a lawyer.
Jonathan Snowden
Member
Jonathan Snowden is the author of Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting and is currently at work on a MMA Encyclopedia. Jonathan is a graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law and has been a radio D.J., television producer, and a soldier. He currently works for the Department of Defense, striving to keep our soldiers safe. He has written extensively about MMA for UGO.com, Five Ounces of Pain, Wrestling Observer, and Total MMA. He is married with two sons and three cats and lives in Alabama.
Mike Straka
Member
Mike Straka is Executive Producer and host of FOX News Fight Game, a mixed martial arts news and commentary video segment on FOXNews.com. In addition, Straka is the VP and Executive Producer of FOX News Digital.
Chris Thomas
Member
Chris Thomas, commonly referred to as the MMA Insider, currently serves as the co-host of SIRIUS Fight Club channel 127. Chris grew up as a martial artist and has long personal experience training many different styles. As a long time student of martial arts, he is a fan of mixed martial arts first, and it gives him great pleasure to discuss the various aspects of the different fighting styles as they apply today in the world of MMA. Chris has been involved in the world of MMA since its inception, covering many of the early events and establishing relationships with the sports’ champions and many of the other young fighters who have become household names in the world of MMA today. In addition to SIRIUS Fight Club, Chris is the President of Endurance Performance Technologies, where he promotes a cutting-edge technology that is designed to rid the athletic world of steroid use.
